Meet Our New Neighbors

Our Portland friends, Shaun and Kirsten, are in the process of moving out to the farm this month. This is good news for many reasons. It means we will have more help on the farm next year, more company on those long country days, and the plants will receive more individual attention. We'll be able to continue creating our vision of a garden of eden-esque acre of mixed annual and perennial forest garden, while guilding and spending more time with our little fruit and nut orchard.

Sean has a successful bike hat business and Kirstin just finished school at PSU. She has a strong interest in children's gardens and the edible schoolyard movement taking place throughout the country right now. Both are serious bikers and the picture above was taken at Fawnwood in July. We were their first overnight stop on their bike trip to Alaska.

Check out Shaun's Blog if you'd like to read about their bike trip or more details and pictures on their move to Fawnwood.

It should be an exciting year ahead!

Building the Yurt

Fawnwood's End of Summer Salad

It's almost the end of peach season here in the Northwest and the salad that seemed to garner the most attention at Lara's wedding was the End of Summer Salad. It was a mix of mild greens and our spicy mesclun lettuce, which is mostly mustards like Tah Tsai, Arugula and Purple Kale. We added toasted hazelnuts and August Lady Peaches, then tossed it with a peach dressing. Add a little salt and pepper and viola!

Happy Autumnal Equinox!

Fawnwood Flair at Wildwood Wedding

This weekend, David and I were part of a "thinking local" catering team for a friend's wedding. Lara and Grant had a vision for celebrating their special day with family and friends. It included being married at Wildwood, a park important to Lara as an environmental education site where she taught nearly 1000 times, if you can believe that! Their vision also included supporting friends, small start-ups and local producers by inviting them to create what they loved most for the day. We were honored to make three beautiful salads made mostly from Fawnwood Farm ingredients. The salads were accompanied by Ancient Heritage Dairy cheeses and mixed crackers. Other folks provided beautiful cakes decorated on site with edible flowers and mints, homemade wines, cordials and homemade preserves. Finally, Grant found a small local company that provided pulled pork for sandwiches from responsibly raised pigs.

All in all, it was a beautiful and very Northwestern Oregon day. The rain, not often welcome on wedding days, was much loved and appreciated by this couple. When I first arrived at the site, Lara said, "What a beautiful day!" and she meant it. How great is that? And about as local as it gets!

Featured Salads: Super Slaw, Thai Cucumber Salad
& Fawnwood's End of Summer Salad

Winter Squash Medley

Our CSA members will be receiving a variety of winter squashes over the next several weeks.
Varieties will include Acorn, Delicata, Butternut and Sugar Pie Pumpkins. At home, if we plan to store our winter squash for a few months, we wipe the outside with a little cider vinegar to kill bacteria and then cure them in a 70 degree room with ventilation for a week or so before putting them in a dry, cool place. Ventilation during curing and storage is key or you could end up with mold issues, which we learned last year.


I dug up a few recipes from my own collection, plus visited some of my trusted sites. Let us know if you have some favorites by emailing me and we'll post them for other members! Thanks!

Homestead Farm's Winter Squash Recipes and Storage Tips
I haven't tried these recipes but they sound good and there are many to choose from.

Nut-Stuffed Delicata Squashes
I made these last season and they were rich and delicious. Fantastic Fall and Winter food, and it was this recipe that kicked off my love of sage.

Another Stuffed Delicata Recipe
This blog includes a whole menu of delicious items that correspond with some of our CSA grown produce. I like this stuffed delicata recipe because it includes turkey in place of the nuts. I'll be trying this sometime in the near future.

Ay, Calypso...

Calypso Beans are going home with half our members this week and the other half next week. They're beautiful heirloom beans and sometimes known as Ying Yang because of their unique markings. They are similar to Pinto Beans, mild flavored and a little starchy in texture, but related to Kidney beans.

We've left the shelling to our members, not just because it would take us a very long time to shell all the beans for our members this year but because it is part of the fun of getting them straight from the farm! Sitting around with friends while shelling these beauties or while watching the tele is quite satisfying. We're often found inside doing these sorts of things each Fall and it's one of the reasons we're looking forward to the upcoming season.

If you're unused to cooking with dried beans, please check out the useful site below. It's pretty thorough and straightforward:
Preparing and Cooking dried beans for use in recipes.

Recipes:
Calypso Beans, Tomatoes and Poblano Peppers Stew
Calypso Bean Salad
Past the long-winded commentary on this blog, you'll find a Mediterranian style dish that uses a lot of non-local ingredients found for a reasonable price at Trader Joe's. Sounds intriguing if you're willing to go the distance.

Family Visit

Last week, my Uncle Bob and Aunt Chris drove up from California. they spent four days with us, helping us in the garden, harvesting blackberries, chopping wood for the winter and myriad other farmsteading tasks. Monday, we had a chance to head down to Deer Island proper to walk along the Columbia River. It was a beautiful Northwest day, moody and unpredictable. I loved it!

Recipe for all those tomatoes!

Tomato and Corn Pie
So, this recipe is from a food blog called "Smitten Kitchen" sent to me by friend Heather Tucker. It was worth the work it takes to make the crust or better yet, save yourself the time and just buy a good one from your favorite local grocery. I highly recommend it! My camera was out of juice this weekend for both of these dishes so you'll just have to trust that it gets my seal of approval!

Bucatini All'Amatriciana with Smoked Mozzarella Meatballs
Don't be intimidated by the name above! It's a fantastic dish by the Food Network's Giada De Laurentiis and also well worth the time to make the meat balls. We used our ground elk instead of beef and veal, we also used smoke gouda instead of mozz because it's cheaper. You can also get away with using parmasian for the entire recipe instead of pecorino romano. Oh, I also used linguine noodles because unless you go to Pasta Works, you may have a hard time finding bucatini noodles. Have fun!

A Needed Vacation

David and I just returned late last night from a trip to Olympia and Mt. Ranier. We visited friends Adrienne and Arly in Oly and then headed up the mountain to Tom and Julia who are Rangers at Sunrise and Ohanapecosh. We even traveled outside the park briefly to gather nearly 30 lbs of blue elderberry, which we're still processing(separating from their umbulled stems) and freezing for wine, soda and jelly later this year. Yesterday, we took a dip in a Panther Creek swimming hole(burrrrrr!) after gathering enough huckleberries for cordial(nearly 2 quarts). All in all, a great trip.

Melons

I can't tell you how pleased I am to be harvesting my first melons here in the PNW. They taste like home! We harvested four Bender's Surprise cantaloupes last week. I chose this variety from Victory Seeds since it was an old, open pollinated one. I have to admit, I'm a Futurama fan so the name didn't hurt. Three were sweet and delicious, while one was just a bit bland. We are patiently waiting for our heirloom Moon and Stars watermelon to ripen fully. The big yellow spot on the watermelon is the "moon" with many little yellow "stars". I love it! David has been trying to talk me into harvesting it and I think it's ready but am a little nervous since I'm new at choosing perfectly ripe ones. I'll take a picture and post when I do.